Blair Collection > Celtic studies

On Roots, Stems, and Derivatives. 5
the primitive fomis of a language, — of that of the parent lan-
guage of a family of languages, — and, ultimately, of the parent
language of all; exactly as the object of Palaeontology is to re-
construct from the bones, shells, etc., the forms which extinct
animals had when livuig.
Leaving out of consideration interjections, we may classify the
different kinds of words of which speech is composed according
to the following division, which is that usually followed by gram-
marians : —
CORPOEAL WORDS. FORMATIONAL WORDS,
I. SUBSTANTIVES.
Noun-substantives. Pronominal substantives (pro-
nouns, /, thou, he, she, it, who,
etc.)
II. ATTEIBUTIVES.
A. Words defining the subject — Predicate words.
a. Adjectives.
a. Qualitative adjectives. 6. 1 Quantitative adjectives
(numerals, etc.)
2 Pronominal adjectives
(niine, thine, this, etc.)
3 Articles.
13. Verbs.
a. Concrete verbs (to love). b. Abstract verbs {to he).
B, Words defining the Predicate — Adverbs.
o. Qualitative adverbs b. Adverbs of time, place,
(derived from adjectives). number, etc.
III. PARTICLES.
Prepositions.
Conjunctions.
This arrangement renders the distinction between the words
which constitute the materials of speech, and those which express
the varying relations of space, number, time, etc., very evident.
And as the words of each class may be subjected to the process
of analysis, we get two kinds of roots, distinguished also as Cor-
poral, and Formal or Formational Roots. As we may get the same
root from a noun, an adjective, a verb, or an adverb, a corporal
root must be considered to have the embryonic power of a whole
sentence ; that is, of expressing a whole concrete conception, but
without possessing any means of expressing the person, time, etc.
Jorporal roots may therefore be considered as germs of nouns and
verbs, rather than as possessing the explicit power of either.
All languages may be classified into a few classes, according
to the manner in which the two kinds of roots are joined to one
28"